


Loverboy

by KingHorseHead



Series: Jaune the Ladykiller [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-04-17 13:39:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14190159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingHorseHead/pseuds/KingHorseHead
Summary: The road to Heroism is a long one, especially when you're at rock bottom and attending one of the most prestigious Huntsmen Academies in the world. Jaune Arc was always told that confidence was key when it came to women, but what happens when you meet a woman that's more confident naturally than you could ever pretend to be? Yang Xiao Long is just the person to challenge Jaune both physically and socially, and they'll both learn what's just charisma and what's attachment as their time at the Beacon Academy goes on.





	1. A social development

Well, they should have all seen this coming.  
“Absolutely not. Never. No.”  
Jaune arc, despite being rejected over and over, refused to let rejection get him down. After all, he was just a normal young man surrounded by fierce warriors in training. He knew he had to work harder to get to their level. He just needed to prove it to Weiss that He was worthy of receiving her affections. He didn’t know what would make him worthy, so he figured it was just good to try every move in the book until something stuck.  
Unfortunately, that meant that he was being shut down every other day by a girl who didn’t want him.  
“I refuse to give up!” He spouted with false confidence. “One day, I will win your heart, Weiss Schnee!”  
The girl huffed and turned away from him. To her, he wasn’t even worth looking at.  
Weiss shut the door between them, leaving Jaune out in the hall by himself.  
“You know, probability dictates that at some point, you will say yes. For whatever reason.” The low and somewhat scratchy voice of her teammate Blake Belladonna kept Weiss from wandering through her thoughts. However, it almost would have been better than thinking about saying yes to doing on a date with Jaune.  
A laugh came from the bed situated just below Blake’s. Yang Xiao Long, wisecracker and troublemaker, was the only other blonde student in school besides Jaune. Her hair was a stronger yellow than the soft blonde Jaune had, but it was still something they shared. “Come on, give loverboy a chance. It’s not like he has anyone to go with to the dance.”  
But Weiss did. She had Neptune. He was what Jaune seemed to strive to be. He was naturally confident, suave, and received attention from Wiess. Jaune just didn’t seem to get that yet.  
“I told him no, and I’m telling you know.” Weiss was stern and clear about her stance regarding Jaune. Neither Blake nor Yang seemed to care much enough to keep the conversation going after that, but Weiss seemed eager to dig more into it. “He’ll never understand, even if I told him right to his face.” She smirked, pulling out a mirror from her things to examine herself. “And I have.”  
Yang groaned. “You’re not really good at the whole letting people down easy thing.” She smiled and watched Weiss’ face twist in annoyance. “He’s not gonna get it if you don’t explain everything to him.”  
There was a brief moment of silence in which Weiss thought about the situation at hand. There was no possible way that she would agree to leave Neptune in favor of Jaune. She honestly didn’t want to have to put in the effort to let him down all soft and easy like.  
But maybe she didn’t have to do it.  
An evil smile curled at the edge of lips, Weiss looked back to Yang, the smile ceasing to go away. “Hey, Yang.”  
The girl in question rose from her seat on her bed, wondering what she could say to her.  
Weiss, as if she really was made of money, pulled out a small handful of Lien chips out from her dressed and set them down on the dressed for Yang to ogle at. It was a pretty good amount of money, but barely pocket change to someone of status like Weiss.  
“How about you go and let him down for me, and I’ll give you all that. Better, I’ll let you take it right now and double it when you actually get him off my back.”  
Though Yang certainly was interested in the money, she couldn’t deny how devious it was. Maybe it was better for Weiss to just muscle up and talk to Jaune, but the girl did just offer to double the pay she was giving Yang now if she did it.  
How could she refuse?  
“I’m gonna go talk to him.” Yang agreed to it happily, not that either of her teammates seemed eager to talk to Jaune right now. “Maybe I can let him down easy for you, Ice Queen.” She shot Weiss a cheesy smile, deflecting the stone cold leer that Weiss directed at Yang.  
Her hands slid across the dresser to pile up and take the chips, pocketing them before making her way to leave the room. Maybe she could treat her sister Ruby out to lunch or something. Maybe Weiss just funded a little team outing.  
She opened the door to the hall, only to find that Jaune was no longer there. It wouldn’t be hard to find him. His dorm was just the door down. If he wasn’t there, then his teammates would surely be able to help.  
It was rather fortunate that she only had to open the door to his dorm to find Jaune.  
Jaune’s room was about as different from Yang’s as one would think. While her room had the four beds situated as bunks, Jaune and his teammates had their beds neatly spread across the room. While it lacked the decoration and personal touch that Yang’s room had, it was certainly tidy and clean.  
The young man in question was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking at his Scroll and watching a video of some sort. He didn’t seem to hear or see Yang come in, judging by how focused he was on the video.  
“Hey Jaune.” It was all she needed to say, and Jaune yelped like a small dog and jumped into the air, nearly dropping his phone in the process.  
“Yang! Hi!” He didn’t look all too happy to see her, but maybe that was just the surprise and fear in his eyes that gave her that impression. “Did you need something?” He found it quite unlikely that Yang would be able to convince Weiss to go with him to the dance. It was much more possible that she needed a favor.  
She gave him an apologetic smile and shook her head. “No, actually,” She patted the pocket on the side of her belt that held the newly acquired Lien. “She just hired me to tell you that she has plans to go with Neptune. Goggles, blue hair, cool guy, you know the one. She really doesn’t want to go out with you man, it’s probably best if you stop now before you’re just losing time.”  
She could see Jaune visible deflate after that, but that wasn’t her problem. Maybe he could sulk a little more, Pyrrha could help him get back on his feet, and everyone had a happy ending. She didn’t really want to say it, but seeing him so sad after hearing that stung a little. She probably could have worded things a little better.  
Like Weiss before her, an idea sprung to mind.  
Yang knew a thing or two about confidence and flirtyness. Of course, she was a buxom bombshell with an attitude, and nobody could say no to a girl like her, but that wasn’t the point. Jaune was soft, kind, and a little dopey, but after he really started hitting the weights with his teammate Pyrrha, he was showing some physical progress. Now he just needed someone to help him make a little social progress.  
She moved closer into the room, giving Jaune ample time to settle back down on his bed. Being armor clad wasn’t a bad thing, especially with only a few plates of armor covering your normal attire like Jaune did. The only people that wore complete armor nowadays were Cardin Winchester and his team, but those bullies were a topic for another day.  
“I’ll tell you what.” She spoke up again, landing Jaune’s eyes on her. “You’re pretty much hopeless.” If he had started to feel better in any way, Jaune was brought back down quickly. “I’ll help you get a date. Hell, I’ll even teach you to be a real ladykiller so people don’t laugh at your phony macho stuff anymore.  
Jaune, though a little annoyed at the fact that she didn’t sugar coat it at all, knew that she was right. He nodded back at her and smiled gratefully. “You’ll really help me out?” He almost convinced himself that this was some sort of prank. Either she’d teach him all the wrong things, or find the last person he’d ever think about taking to the dance.  
“Yeah, and I won’t even charge you. You’ll just owe me a little favor here and there, okay?”  
“That sounds an awful lot like charging me. You’re just not using money.” He grumbled, but he really wasn’t in a position to argue with her. The dance was coming up soon, he still didn’t have a date, and he wasn’t any better with the ladies than when he vomited on Yang’s shoes during the ship ride to the academy. “But I’ll take it. Where do we start?”  
Yang had to give it some thought. Where would they start? What sort of girl would want to go with Jaune to the dance anyways? Ruby was obviously off limits, despite how good friends Ruby and Jaune were. Blake didn’t seem interested in the least. Nora had Ren, and Pyrrha… She wasn’t too sure on Pyrrha just yet. Maybe give her a little more time before anything else.  
“Alright, alright, I don’t have a plan yet, but I’ll text you when I’m ready to get started.” She admitted openly to him about her lack of a plan, not that he seemed to mind much at all. “Just don’t work too hard, okay loverboy?” She laughed at her little nickname for him. It only seemed appropriate given his social goals, and his little scowl only made it all the better for her.  
She didn’t have much to say to him after that. She continued to laugh her way out of the room and back over to her own dorm, where Blake and Weiss were still seated, engaged in separate projects.  
“Did you tell him off?” Weiss seemed almost eager to hear what happened as soon as Yang came back in, but Yang didn’t have any sort of quick response ready. She knew she had the tell the truth, but she didn’t know if it was better to do it now or wait later to do it.  
“Better, I’m going to help him get a date.” She smiled, seemingly angering Wiess.  
Weiss scoffed and went back to whatever she was working on. “Good luck with that. I don’t know what you could possibly do to make him more attractive to girls. It’s hopeless.”  
“Scared of loosing your rebound?” Yang hid the insult under a joke rather badly. It was more than enough to get Weiss to turn around fully and glare right into her lilac eyes.  
“Jaune is not a rebound, he wasn’t even in question in the first place.” She hissed, trying to protect her own dignity.  
Yang, with a spark of inspiration, realized that this was a good place to start learning what about Neptune made him such an object of desire for Weiss in the first place. “So? What would have made him better?”  
“Nothing.” Weiss quickly brushed it off. “Unless he can lose the dopey attitude and actually gain some initiative beyond looking at pretty girls, I don’t think he’s going to go anywhere.”  
It was perfect. Weiss was telling her just what Yang needed to hear, everything that Jaune needed to improve on from a critical standpoint from someone who didn’t like him. Yang already had a few ideas, but another angle and some reassurance was always helpful.  
“You have to admit, he is determined. The ninja Yousuke never stopped sending lilies to the girl with his heart, and it was years before they finally got together, but his determination payed off in the end.” Blake had her head in a book as usual, and Jaune seemed to fit the bill of more than a few of the protagonists in her romance novels.  
Yang laughed. Jaune was nowhere close to being a ninja. He was about as far away from that as one could get, both in attitude and general motif. “So you want him to be a Ninja of Love, eh Blake?” Yang joked, resulting in a book being lazily thrown at her by the bookworm herself. Funnily enough, it was the book that Yang was making fun of in the first place, Ninjas of Love. Maybe it had some good stuff in there, good study material. Maybe Yang would have to give some of Blake’s books a read at some point to see if they were worth shoving your face in all day.  
If anything, the past fifteen minutes were rather productive. Yang just needed to get to work on how she was going to train Jaune to get better at talking to girls. She wasn’t going to have her first student be a failure after all.


	2. Lesson One

 

It had been a few days since Yang had barged in and told Jaune that she was going to help him be more charismatic and even land a date for the upcoming dance. One the one hand, he was still disheartened being told that Weiss seemed to have never even thought of giving him a chance, but Yang taking this time to devise a plan did allow him to settle on this information and digest the truth of the matter.

Things weren’t made much better by the fact that things were still tense with his teammate Pyrrha. He was indeed making progress with his combat training and her help after he had been brought down from his anger, but he believed he wasn’t progressing fast enough. He wanted her to train him harder, but she almost seemed afraid to hit him more than what she believed to be necessary. He had poured his heart and secrets into her, but while the relief was brief, he felt fear of another knowing him inside and out like that. Cardin wrung him for all he was worth because of it until Jaune had managed to hold off a single Ursa Major, a feat rather promising of the potential Jaune had inside of him.

It still wasn’t enough. That was one single opponent. The Vytal Festival was fast approaching, and that meant that he and his team would be fighting another team of students from another school. Humans and Faunus were much smarter than any Ursa, Minor or Major.

Jaune didn’t have the time to worry about all of that. Schoolwork came first. He only had one last assignment to complete for the time being.

It was almost rather unfortunate that it was now that someone chose to knock on the door to Jaune’s dorm. It was just him in there while the rest of his teammates were off elsewhere, but the unknown person didn’t wait for Jaune to even say anything before the door was forced open, a powerful kick nearly knocking it off the hinges.

“Hey Jaune!” Yang chirped, ignoring Jaune’s yelp of surprise and look at fear and surprise. “It’s time for your first lesson.” She moved into the room, letting Jaune scramble across his bed to make sure everything was still there.

He was quick to put everything away. He didn’t even need to ask Yang to know that she probably wasn’t going to wait until he was done with his homework. “It’s not really a good time,” He tried speaking to her, looking up at her from his bed. “But I guess we can get started.”

“Good.” She couldn’t make it clearer that she cared little about actual academic work. That wasn’t why she was here. “Because the dance is coming up in like two weeks, and that means I only have two weeks to make you a regular Casanova and get you a date.” That made things quite difficult, but Yang liked a bit of a challenge. She and Jaune needed to scope out who was left without a date. Out of the people that both teams knew, not including those on said teams, the options were more than a little slim.

Sitting herself down on his bed with a friendly plop, Yang pulled out her scroll and looked through the list of girls she had currently compiled for Jaune to take a look at.

Jaune leaned over to examine the list as Yang slowly slid through it. “Huh.” He muttered. He should have known that there weren’t that many, but out of the people he wasn’t a complete stranger to, there was next to nothing.

“See any you like?” Yang looked over to him as she hit the bottom of the list. A quick glance back at her Scroll and she sent the list over to Jaune so he could keep it on hand.

“I mean, I did save Velvet that one time.” He shrugged. “We have talked to each other a few times, but I’m kinda scared of her teammates.”

Yang let out a laugh. Yatsuhashi, a titan of a man who simple wielded a sword proportionate to his own size, could crush Jaune without a second thought. Fox Alistair was a complete mystery. He was as quiet as Ren, and his white eyes made it unclear to if he were blind or not. Completely unreadable.

“What about that other girl on Velvet’s team?” Yang pitched in with an unlikely idea. “Coco, I think. Yeah.” Sliding through the list again, Yang knew she had her in there, though she wasn’t really sure why.

Jaune laughed back at Yang dryly, mocking her back for laughing at his fear of their teammates. “They’re second years, and I’m sure she already has a million guys asking her to the dance. She’s not like Velvet at all.”

Velvet seemed like a more likely possibility since he had saved her from Cardin’s ridicule once before, not to mention his continued heroics in the days following that. Jaune and Velvet were probably good acquaintances, if not the lowest bar of what a friend could be. She was so shy and kind, almost nervous like Jaune was. On second thought, Yang figured that Jaune focusing on Velvet might not be such a bad idea.

Yang tilted her head from one side to the other, shrugging. “Alright.” She went along with Jaune’s only clue as to who could be a good person to ask out. “Velvet it is. You’re already on her nice list, so there’s a start. Way better than asking one of those students from the other schools, like that green haired girl or the other one on her team.”

 Yang didn’t put either Emerald or the other one into the list because she frankly didn’t like either of them, and Jaune was too much of a softy to one and gun in. If it was someone who was actually going to Beacon, then maybe something more could be had there. Weiss didn’t seem to care much on that front. It was a cool guy crush, and she might be a little sad after, but Yang assure herself that Weiss would be fine after Neptune left.

With a place to start, Yang pushed herself up to her feet and shot Jaune a smile. “Come on, lets get you started. We want you talking to Velvet more so you can figure each other out and we can get you good enough to charm her for a dance or two.” She started walking out at a slow enough pace for Jaune to catch on and follow.

The two left the room after Jaune locked up, wandering the halls to find Velvet or the rest of her team. Such a shy girl like Velvet would surely inspire Fox and Yatsuhashi to be a little more protective over her than Coco, which would be a hurdle. To Yang, this was just another challenge to make Jaune a little more charismatic and like confident in himself. He’d need to prove to them that he’d be good for Velvet.

“Do you have any idea where she is?” Jaune wondered. Out of all the people they could have picked, it had to be someone that they both knew nothing about.

“Nope.” She shook her head. The school was only so big, they would find her eventually. “But while we’re looking, we might as well work on some other stuff. Namely your big macho act. It’s pretty cheesy, Jaune.” He sighed and sank forward, but Yang giggled at his reaction. Surely he didn’t take it that personally. Or at least, he had to have known that he was overdoing it.

“Yeah.” He sighed once more. “Never really been good at the whole, social thing, you know? You’d figure that with a big family and seven sisters, there were always new people to talk to and get better at this.”

Yang had almost forgotten that Jaune started to ramble and go off on tangents when he got nervous. It was his way of doing something, Yang wasn’t sure what Jaune was hoping to accomplish by over explaining things. Hopefully Velvet was the kind to enjoy conversation and found Jaune interesting enough to want to stick around.

“Yup. Yeah.” Yang wanted to make sure he didn’t start rambling too much. She wanted him to avoid that sort of stuff until after he truly broke the ice with Velvet. “Step one, chill. Both when you’re being all big and when you’re being normal. You start rambling and over-explaining and it makes the rest of us feel just as awkward as you. Step two, put them first. Talk about them, learn about them, talk about yourself when they ask you stuff, or it’s short little bits. This makes girls know that you’re invested in them and want to learn about them, while also not being bored listening to you go on all about your stuff, okay?”

Jaune typed away on his Scroll, writing down everything Yang was telling him. He knew he had a tendency to talk a little too much, but it was good to know how and where to focus that energy elsewhere.

Meanwhile. The duo was having little luck around campus trying to find the girl they were after. All day the two searched, but to no avail. At least it was Friday, meaning they had all of Saturday and even Sunday to look around. At this point, Jaune just wanted to go back to the dorm and finish his work before it got too late. Yang would likely barge in tomorrow like she did earlier, and Jaune wanted to make sure he didn’t have to worry about anything as she dragged him around Beacon and maybe through the Kingdom of Vale.

* * *

 

He and Yang had split before dinner. Jaune had gone back to the cafeteria to see what they had available since he was too tired to go into town. He felt bad that he had so little to say to her, though that might have just been from being next to a gorgeous blonde who was mentoring you in the acts of being smooth. Maybe she could do a little more teaching tomorrow, build up his strengths so ladies don’t notice his weaknesses.

Later that evening, tired from the several miles he and Yang had walked, Jaune trudged to his dorm with heavy legs and heavy lids. Yang seemed perfectly fine walking around all day, everywhere, but Jaune was still working up to the amount of stamina most of the huntsmen and huntresses had.

He had crossed paths a few times with both his teammates as well as Ruby, but never had once seen any sign of team CVFE.

When he opened his door, however, Jaune was treated with an adrenaline rush and an urge to bolt away.

“Hi Jaune.” Her voice was cool, calm, and somewhat removed. A pair of eyes looked at Jaune from beyond a pair of stylish sunglasses. “We heard you were asking about our team. About Velvet.”

This was Coco Adel, one of Velvet’s teammates, sitting on one of the four beds in the room while Yatsuhashi and Fox stood at her sides, all three of them staring him down.

“Yeah…” He stuttered, only barely managing to get out. “The dance is coming up soon, and I know that me and her talked a bit here and there.” His voice went high, he continued to stammer as he paced in the little area near the door that he gave to himself. “So… I was wondering, you know, if I could take her to the dance?”

An uncomfortable silence took over the room. It was mostly uncomfortable for Jaune. Coco wore this small grin that refused to go away, and it was starting to unnerve Jaune.

“That’s it?” If she weren’t so cool, she probably would have laughed at him, though her disbelief was evident in her tone. “Alright Yatsu, Fox, you can drop it. Kid just wants to dance.” 

As if on command, the two relaxed visibly. Yatsuhashi smiled, finding the whole situation funny. Fox, though lax, didn’t do much else.

“I guess you’re pretty lucky, Jaune. We had a mission prepped and ready to go, but it turned out to be a dud. The team, mainly Velvet and I, are in charge of the dance.” Jaune was mentally cheering at this, but still visibly tense. Pyrrha had let him to not let his guard down, even after his opponent relaxed. There was still room for a sneak attack, and he needed to stay on his toes.

“But I have a question for you.” Her voice dropped, and this was exactly what Jaune was waiting for. It didn’t help, he still let out a small yelp and froze up once more.

Rising from the bed, Coco was of average height. She and Fox might have been the shortest of the room, but that was only because Jaune was above average, and Yatsuhashi was well beyond average.

“Why do you want to ask out Velvet?” Her tone returned to normal, but Jaune didn’t want to believe the mental torture was over. “There are tons of first years that don’t have dates yet, I’m sure.”

Jaune let the question sink in. He needed to breathe. The next time he spoke, it was going to be a long winded explanation involving Weiss, Neptune, and probably somehow looping around to his family. He needed to calm down. “Well,” He started. “She just seems like the type who wouldn’t ask anyone to the dance, and she’s really nice from the times we talked-“

“And you think that if you kept talking, there’d be something more.” Coco concluded, reasoning that Jaune would say something similar to that. She expected a nod, some sort of agreement, but it never came.

“No.” Came Jaune’s sad response. His head turned down, his voice grew soft, and Jaune was met with the realization of what he was doing. “I don’t know if there will be anything more. I don’t know the first bit about Velvet, or any of you really. If something does work out, then I’m glad.” His voice picked up for only a moment, dropping once more with a sigh. “But honestly I don’t expect her to say yes.”

Coco was silent. She wasn’t really expecting this. She had heard that Jaune had been asking around for the team all day, a game of telephone from one person to the next. She thought it was going to be the macho act she had heard about before, but it was surprisingly sincere.

She let the room drown in silence. Coco could see that Jaune had relaxed a little, but wondered if the silence would be enough to stress him out again. He didn’t seem to tense up at all, so there was something she could make note of.

She let out a little noise as she smiled at Jaune. She tipped her head down to see him without her glasses, revealing her deep brown eyes to him. “Alright Jaune, you’ve sold me. You seem like a nice enough guy. You did stand up to Cardin that one time in the cafeteria, and he hasn’t messed with her since.”

Jaune looked at her in shock. He had expected her to go along with his self ridicule, probably agreeing how stupid it was that he was to think that he could get a date on such short notice just because he helped her out and she was nice to him.

“I’ll do you one better.” Coco reached into a pouch on her pants and pulled out what seemed to be a card of some sort. It was black and glossy, not resembling a Lien chip in the slightest. She didn’t bother continuing that sentence, deciding to instead leave with her teammates in tow. The card was tossed carelessly behind her, landing neatly on Jaune’s bed.

Jaune could only stand by as the three left. Where were Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora? It was getting late, and how did they even get into the room at all since he had locked it on the way out? He had no idea, but Coco’s voice briefly broke him from his thoughts as she left him with that missing part of the sentence he had been wondering about.

“Since you are single and all!” He could hear her say. Jaune rushed into the room to inspect the card that she had dropped.

First and foremost, it was a business card with Coco’s name on it, printed in a gold font on a black and brown card. Unlike most business cards Jaune had ever seen, it was completely plastic. Her name was printed on the front, but the contents of the back were what had surprised him.

On the back was a phone number and an address in Vale, both printed with the same gold ink that painted her name onto the front of the card. Why did Coco have these on hand? It was her name, so maybe it was her number too? He’d have to consult Yang about this tomorrow when he was better rested.

* * *

 

The following morning, Jaune woke to the sight of all of his teammates in bed. Ren was always the first one up, a sign of just how truly early in the morning it was if he were still asleep.

He could barely remember switching into pajamas and setting both the card and the phone on his nightstand.

The thought of the card registered fully, and Jaune was reminded of the fateful encounter that night. He needed to tell Yang about it as soon as possible, but it was still much too early. There was no way a girl like her was up at this hour.

He grumbled. Why was he even up? Maybe he was just expecting her to barge in and wake him up. Well, at the very least he knew he could get some more time to sleep before the day really started.

Going back to sleep felt like a blink. A blink that felt really, really good. It didn’t last nearly as long as he had hoped, but by the time he was up, he could hear Nora talking to Ren about something.

He ignored them for the time being, and instead went to grab his scroll to take a picture of the card.

Nora and Ren hardly noticed Jaune, being occupied in a conversation on their own, and let him take his picture in peace. The picture was quickly sent over to yang, who even quicker called Jaune directly on the phone.

“Hey?” Was Jaune’s nervous start, wondering why she wanted to talk instead of just text him.

“Hey!” She said back, almost angrily. “Coco Adele gave you her number and address and you didn’t tell me until now? When did this happen, loverboy?” She grew into a teasing tone, surprised that Coco even talked to him, much less gave him her number.

“Last night.” He answered, getting some sort of excited noise out of Yang. “She showed up at the room with the two guys on her team, we talked for a minute, and she gave me that before she left.” There was a little more to it than that, but he figured that Yang didn’t care about all of the sappy details.

“Meet me at the fountain for lunch, I guess we’re going right into lesson two!”


	3. Out on the town

“You’re kidding, right? There has to be more to it than that.” Yang was dying to know more, but Jaune seemed unwilling to share.

The buxom blonde sat at the edge of the fountain, leaning heavily over towards Jaune who only sat a few feet away from her.

Jaune shook his head. There wasn’t much more to say. It was a simple conversation that Jaune was admittedly too scared to actually talk through. Coco’s teammates were rather scary when they wanted to be. Jaune didn’t want to admit that he was a bit easier to scare than a majority of the students at the academy.

“Look, Yang, that’s all that happened. They were in my room when I came back, Coco and I talked a bit, and she left a card.” It was a little strange that he had cards prepared for such an occasion, but Jaune still believed that it was something special that she gave him her number in the first place.

“Come on.” She dragged out, groaning and smiling as she moved closer. “At least you have to admit that she’s a step up from ol’ ice queen, eh?”

Jaune shrugged. He guessed she was right. “Eh.” Coco was certainly just as popular as Weiss, maybe even a little more so due to being a second year student. “I guess. Coco did seem a little more, I don’t know, willing to talk to me?” She had to have been. It seemed to be the only thing that made any sort of sense. She didn’t seem the kind to prank him or anything, especially after helping Velvet.

Before Jaune could react, Yang slung an arm around him and pulled him close. Jaune yelped, but Yang paid it no mind.

“Now that you have someone on the line, we need to get you up to shape to talk to her. You know, have an actual conversation. We need to make sure she’s really interested in you.”

“Why?” Jaune tilted his head to look over at her, carefully moving as far back as he could to avoid colliding with her ample chest. “I thought the whole thing that got her interested in me was my humble charm and innocent views?”

Yang snorted. “Yeah, right.” She nodded her head to let him know that she was being honest. “But there’s got to be more otherwise she’ll get bored. And now that you’re already on a path with Coco, you need to choose if you’re going to try and ask her out, or back out and try for Velvet.”

She had a point. The whole journey they were on yesterday was about finding Velvet to ask her out, but it seemed as if Coco snuffed that chance out from under her teammate.

“I guess…” Jaune wasn’t quite sure, but he knew he had to make this decision soon. “Maybe this is another test?” Jaune looked up at her curiously. “Like when she tried scaring me with her teammates.”

Yang pondered this just long enough for Jaune to slip out from under her arm, moving away again to put more space between them.

It was completely possible that this could be some sort of test, though Yang still didn’t know nearly enough about the second year team to know if it were realistic. Maybe she was leading Jaune around for a laugh. She didn’t seem mean enough to do that.

“Whatever.” Yang shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, and flashed a smile at Jaune. “We’ll make you so much of a catch that she can’t say no to you.”

That seemed to be the right thing to say to Jaune. The young man visibly relaxed a little bit and gave the brawling blonde a weak smile in return.

“We still have to get you talking, but you also have to get some confidence!” A sudden and somewhat forceful hand on Jaune’s shoulder shook him up just as Yang wanted. “Ladies like a guy who’s actually confident.”

But how would they do that, Jaune wondered? He couldn’t fake confidence nearly as well as he thought he could, and he didn’t always entirely believe himself. He looked up at her, his mouth opening only slightly to take a breath.

Yang went on without Jaune having the chance to say anything back to her. He didn’t need to, she believed. It was time for him to learn what women wanted, and she was indeed a woman. “I’ve seen your act, Jaune, and I gotta say, I didn’t believe any of it for a second.” She could see him deflate a little upon hearing this, but that only proved her point.

“You gotta put some back into it! Every time Weiss challenged you or something unexpected came up, you broke down. Plus, it’s way too hammy.”

“Hey,” He chirped in annoyance, but her smile cut him off once more.

“Look, action star, nobody really talks like that. The serenade was a nice touch, but you’re not a big, buff brawler. You don’t look like one, and you don’t have anything to back that up.” Her hand slid off his shoulder and fell back into her lap. “Where did you even learn to be like that anyways?”

Jaune, upon having to think back on why and how he adopted such a persona, blushed, remembering how he was as a young teen, looking for hot girls and validation when he was barely strong enough to pick up his sword.

“Look, I’d rather not talk about it.” He rubbed the back of his head nervously, looking away from her. Yang smiled gleefully at this, cooing and laughing at all the possibilities that floated through her mind.

“You have to talk about it now!” Her lilac eyes were wide with excitement, her fingers crossing over one another as she leaned in.

Jaune let out a groan. He could try to stick up for himself here, he knew he should. He really wanted to tell her no, but there was a part of him that wanted to let her know his humble origins, even if they did make him cringe. “I… My dad told me that to win over girls I had to be confident, and the most confident guy I knew was Castle Nova.”

Yang Snorted. She howled, even, unable to control her laughter. Jaune grew more and more red, gathering attention from any passersby.

“Can you not?” Jaune whispered meekly. He hid his face behind his hand, hoping it would help. He groaned once more and shrunk down as much as he could for a talk and lanky young man.

Over the course of a few minutes, Yang slowly brought herself down. She would be so close to talking again, but the thought of Jaune’s false bravado was a poor impersonation of TV Action Star Castle Nova. A man among men who hunted women, charmed them, had their way with them, and left the next morning.

“Really?” Yang slowly asked as she wiped a tear away from her eye. “Castle Nova? I mean he gets all the ladies, but-“

It was Jaune’s turn to cut off Yang, and he did so with an embarrassed squeal of a reply. “I know!” He let out quickly. “I didn’t get that he was so… You know. He made women fall in love with him, and left them.” Jaune sighed and set his hand down, breathing out softly and slowly to calm himself down. “When I was younger, I thought that he…” He paused, looking to Yang, and looked away.

Yang seemed genuinely interested now. After her little laughing fit was over, it seemed obvious that this was something serious to Jaune, and it probably hurt a little for him to admit that he once looked up to such a man, and having to realize how awful it can be.

“You can’t laugh, okay?” Jaune only peeked at her, but he could just barely see her nod her head out of the corner of his eye. “I thought that he was looking for his true love, and that’s why he was so grand and crazy when he met those women. He spent time with them, and realized they weren’t the one, and he didn’t have the heart to tell them that they weren’t the one.”

Yang didn’t have an answer ready for Jaune, not for this. “You say that like you had a rude awakening.”

He only nodded back to her. He could still remember his sister coming home, crying in her dress the family had bought just for that night. He remembered her sister’s sobbing story, how she caught her date talking to another woman. Everything he had said to Jaune’s sister he had said to this other girl, word for word.

“Some guys are in it for themselves…” Jaune said quietly. “But when it came to impressing Weiss, the things he said and did worked. I thought it would work if I tried it all on one girl.” He didn’t want to look up at her. He felt weird thinking about it all again, and he didn’t like it one bit. “If it’s Velvet, it’s Velvet, If it’s Coco, it’s Coco. I’m don’t want to juggle girls, or even worse leave a path of broken hearts.”

Yang smiled a little, set her hand on his shoulder much gently this time, and patted it. “Like you could do that.” To keep things light, she punched Jaune’s arm just enough to get him to react. “You’re too nice to break someone’s heart, but all I’m here to help you do is help you figure out which girl would be the best for you. If they don’t like you, they’ll let you know. I don’t think every girl is going to fall for you.”

“Come on.” Yang stood up and set her hands on her hips. “They day’s still young, and we have some hunnies to talk to. Coco is a big maybe with that card of hers she gave you, but we have to have a plan if it doesn’t work out.”

Jaune was slow to rise, finally looking Yang in the eyes as he peaked over her. “Alright, but where do we go? Who are we even going to talk to?”

“I have an idea”

* * *

 

She had pulled him all the way down into the city, dragging him into the streets so he could meet some new women to just try and have a conversation with. She had considered bringing him to Junior’s club, but she was still sure that she wasn’t exactly welcome there. Maybe another few weeks until she could come back for a drink or two.

They stood in a small bookstore that was once owned by a man named Tukson. The store had recently gone under a change of management, not that Yang really cared. It was best for Jaune to start with women who were equally nervous as he was. Looking around a book store was probably the best place for Jaune to start talking to girls at. Maybe a café or another social space, but Yang didn’t want to throw Jaune at girls as high and mighty as Coco or herself.

“Alright heartbreaker,” Yang smiled and patted his shoulder. “You just need to find a girl that shares some of your interests. Libraries have all their books sorted, right? Just find a girl who likes comics or whatever.” Yang could not doubt the existence of nerdy girls. Her own sister was a gun and weapon nerd after all. Surely there had to be some girls who were into comics.

Jaune sighed. “You know I like more kinds of stuff other than comic books, right?” He gave her a rather flat expression, but couldn’t deny that this was most likely the best place to start out.

“No.”

“Oh.” Jaune knew that he and Yang never really spent much time together, if at all. The only one from team RWBY that Jaune had actually made a friend out of was Ruby herself, and even their conversations were somewhat limited by their separate team leader duties. “Well, yeah. I do like other stuff. I like action stuff, cool mysteries.”

“Castle Nova.” Yang gave him a sickeningly sweet smile, to which Jaune sighed much louder than he needed to. “Won’t bring it up again, promise. Look, just go out there and start talking. Remember, keep the focus on her, sprinkle in things about yourself to keep her interested.”

Jaune gave her a stern nod and walked further in. Maybe he didn’t need to go straight to his own interests. Maybe he could look over at some of the other genres that girls would like more. Though he’d never admit it, especially to Yang after he told her about his former role model, he did like romance novels quite a bit. His sisters told him that ladies liked a sensitive guy.

He guessed he could say he was fortunate to have an actual liking to romance novels. There was a girl taking a look at a small stack of books, minding her own business. He wasn’t looking to take her on a date and shower her with romance, but he did need to work on just talking in general.

By the time he looked to Yang for reassurance, she was standing by herself, taking a look at another stack of books without paying attention to him.

The neared the girl and pretended to look at books on the way, hoping to not seem like he was going directly after her. As he moved closer, he took a look at the sort of books that she was looking at. Romance novels, of course, but an interesting collection. Makeout Paradise, Burn Book, The Beowolf Book, Cold Vale Winter, and a few others.

Jaune groaned. Of course her interests leaned more on this side. Had they been some mushier books like Ninjas of Love, he would have been right at home. Well, he had to try at the very least.

“Burn Book?” Jaune tried his best to stick his nose in her business, but only just enough to try and be helpful. “Have you read that one?”

She ignored him completely.

“Well… It’s alright.” Jaune shrugged. He really wanted to try and strike up conversation, but only now was it dawning on him that talking about explicit material with a woman in a public setting probably wasn’t the way to go. “Ninja’s of Love is better than all these books combined. All the writers are just there for the nasty stuff. No care for the characters.”

“I suppose.” The girl breathed out. “But I’m not exactly here for deep, meaningful plots. At least today.”

Jaune tilted his head. At least it was something to go off of. “Today? What sort of books do you normally go for?”

The girl sighed again and pushed away the stray strands of brown hair away from her face. “I’m a writer. I read other people’s works to get inspiration for myself. I have all the romantic things down, it’s just this part that I’m having trouble writing.”

It made enough sense to him, whether or not it was actually true. “Well none of those books are going to help you.” He shrugged and looked away.

The girl’s attention was placed fully on him, an eyebrow raised in curiosity.

Jaune searched the books for some that he knew and liked. Sure, all of the physical attributes of a relationship were just as important as the emotional ones to the couples that sought such things out, but Jaune knew that all of those books were strictly physical. There was no emotional connection between the characters.

He sifted through the books, but a tap on the shoulder brought him out of his train of thought.

“Look, thanks for the help, but I’d rather just figure it out myself.” The girl seemed to feel a little bad for turning him away. “Thanks, though.” She took some of the books available and left, leaving Jaune by himself in the section for romance.

Jaune stood there for a good several minutes, processing what had happened. Before he knew it, Yang was at his side again, smiling and laughing to herself.

* * *

 

“I just don’t get it.” Jaune sat on the edge of his bed and looked at Yang. “What went wrong? I was helpful, I-“

“You came on way too strong, dude.” Yang laughed once more and paced around the room. “You talked fine, but you were up in her business before she had a chance to say or do anything.”

“She wasn’t really responding.”

“Then she wasn’t into you.” Yang replied to him dumbly. “You can’t force your way through. Why can’t you talk to girls like you’re talking to Pyrrha or Nora? Hell, even me?”

Jaune shook his head. “None of you count. Pyrrha thought I was being funny when we met, and Nora’s my teammate. You’re my coach. These are new girls that I have to make like me.”

“Only if they find you acceptable to talk to in the first place If you do too much, they think you’re just there to get in their pants.” Yang folded her arms and looked down at him. This was probably one of the few times where she would actually be taller than him.

Jaune waved his hand in the air dismissively. “Alright, alright. I get it. Next time, I’ll keep it simple. They have to think that I’d be good company before they talk to me more.”

She nodded with a smile. “Attaboy.”

Saying little else, Jaune reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. That card that Velvet gave him was still in there.

Should he call her? Go straight to the address? If he didn’t want to be so pushy and forceful, it would probably be for the best if he just called first. But he didn’t want to be weird. What if he messed things up like he did here? There was no end to the list of things that could go wrong.

“You should call it.”

Yang’s suggestion made Jaune look up at her. “Is that really a good idea?”

“You’ll never know if you don’t.” She walked over to him and motioned forward with her arms, her gold-yellow bands shaking lightly on her wrists. “You got her number! How many other guys can say they got Coco’s number? Especially out of everyone in the school?”

She had a point. Jaune pulled out his Scroll and entered the number into the keypad.

“Coco? It’s Jaune.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI everyone, it's your friendly Neighborhood Horse Head here to thank you for reading my story up to this point. While I do love writing this, and have plans to make many more, I can't do it alone. I'm looking for someone to Beta for me so these chapters can be posted a little faster and with a little more quality! If you're interested in my stories and want to help me make more, please feel free to send me a message!
> 
> Until Next Time!


	4. Looking back, Looking forward

“Hey, Coco? It’s me, Jaune.” She couldn’t believe he actually called her. He had to give him props for actually getting the nerves to do it. She hoped he’d do it. He really needed to obsess on someone other than Weiss. At least Coco seemed a little receptive to him. Real or not, this would help with his confidence.

With him on the phone with her, Yang was finally able to set some time aside to think and collect her thoughts. This really wasn’t her sort of thing. She wasn’t always the kind and helping soul that Ruby was, but when Weiss asked her to talk to Jaune, she was ready to do that and a little more.

She stared at the young man who had stood up and paced around nervously during the call. She smiled softly at him, watching his free hand wave around as he tried rather badly at explaining things Her smiled sweetened a little more as she looked away, staring up at the sky and wondering how she had gotten into this sort of mess.

Maybe it was just because of the money. Maybe it was just because she felt like doing something nice. Maybe it was because she felt he owed him something. She wasn’t quite sure why exactly she felt a little too eager to help Jaune land a date, but all she knew was that there were no shortage of interesting interactions between the two of them.

 

 

_They hadn’t even gotten off the ship before Jaune was feeling Nauseous. He had defended himself with motion sickness and nerves, but Yang always gave him a bit of a hard time about it regardless._

_He could barely hear Glynda Goodwitch over his pounding chest and ringing ears. His stomach twisted itself into knots over his worry about school._

_He could feel the saliva building up in his mouth. His hand shot up to help keep his mouth closed, Jaune bent forward and began to run around the deck as if his head were cut off. That almost would have been a preferable situation._

_“Ew, gross! You got some on your shoe!” Jaune could hear Ruby squeal in mild horror. Jaune could only taste something indescribable in his mouth. He couldn’t register that it was actually happening. As soon as he heard the hiss of the hydraulics, he darted for the door and made his way to the nearest trash can to empty out the rest of his stomach._

_It had taken a few long and agonizing minutes, but by the time he was done, a rather sudden explosion alerted him to Ruby and her predicament._

_He helped her to her feet and found their way to the auditorium for their first assembly._

_“Oh, Jaune, this is my sister Yang!” After the mysterious Professor Ozpin had given them a few short words to start the year off with, Ruby had dragged Jaune around to find her sister, pulling the blonde away from her old friends in the process. “I think you might… Already know her…” She nervously looked away with a small and sweet smile, only for her sister to look up at Jaune with a wild smile of her own._

_Despite the fact that Jaune was a good deal taller than Yang, she would never forget how Jaune had the strange ability to shrink down and make himself much smaller than he normally stood. She smiled a little more at this, knowing that she could pull a few over his head for a good laugh._

_In a show of good faith, she slapped his shoulder and patted it soundly, hoping that he’d understand that she didn’t mean much by it. If anything, She hoped that Jaune would get along well with Ruby, her sister needed a few new friends, and she did have worse choices to pick from._

“Yang?”

The sound of her name was distant and faded. Yang was far too busy thinking back to their first meeting to pay attention to the real Jaune.

He poked her in the shoulder hesitantly, uttering her name once more to shake her from her thoughts with a small yelp. Jaune pulled his hand back as quickly as he could, even taking a small step away from her to avoid being hit with her shot-gauntlets.

“Oh, hey.” Yang shrugged it off like nothing had happened, despite this being one of the few times where she was actually caught off guard by something. “How’d it go?”

Jaune smiled and pocketed his phone. “She invited me to come over to that address over the weekend. I guess she lives near the shopping district in town.”

Yang was sure to respond to his smile with one of her own, all too happy to see Jaune making some progress. She pulled him in and slung her arm around his neck. “Atta boy! Look at this lady killer here talking it up!”

“Now I just have to worry about talking to her in person and not looking like an idiot.” Jaune chimed in quietly, letting Yang have her little moment of pride.

Yang didn’t seem ready to let him go, or maybe had simply forgotten what boundaries were. Jaune had to muscle himself out of her grasp, much to her amusement.

Jaune didn’t have much to say, but Yang was being awful kind to him. He could only wonder if Weiss had really paid her this much to seem like she cared about Jaune’s plight. Maybe Weiss did feel a little bad turning him away by proxy.

Jaune, sitting back down on the edge of the fountain, looked into the distance, thinking about his own history with Yang. Of course he couldn’t forget their first meeting, but Jaune was plagued by another meeting between them.

“Hey, Yang?” He didn’t look over at her, not noticing that she had turned fully towards him. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate all this, but I just…” He trailed off. Was it really right to ask her such a question? Should he look a gift horse in the mouth? “Are you… Do you still, you know, feel bad about… you know.” He didn’t want to outright say it, but he could tell by Yang’s movement in the corner of his eye that she knew what he was talking about.

 

 

_“Give it up Jauney-boy! None of that fake confidence will save you here!”_

_Cardin Winchester was what many would call a bully. The fact that his three teammates were holding Jaune down without a problem didn’t help to dispute this fact, nor did the punches to Jaune’s gut._

_Jaune, Cardin, and the rest of for latter’s team were outside near the back of campus. Nobody would pass by and bother them so far away from the beaten path._

_Cardin let another punch fly, this time square into Jaune’s jaw. He let out a powerful yell but suppressed the sound by biting down on his lip. Tears fell from his eyes. Bullies were bullies no matter where you went, and Beacon was no different._

_“This is what you get for being the hero.” Cardin didn’t stop to let Jaune recover at all after the last swing, and kept the punches flying._

_Jaune only let out a strained grunt in response. While he wasn’t the strongest, Jaune had proven himself to be quite durable when it came to taking his lumps. More often than not, Cardin would have his fun, beating on the blonde punching bag, but would eventually get bored of it. All Jaune needed to do was make up some sort of cover story about how he banged himself up this time._

_He knew what he had done to get himself into the mess, but he didn’t regret it one bit. Cardin and his lackeys, Russel, Dove, and Sky, were harassing a second year student, Velvet Scarlatina. She was a Faunus, a human-animal hybrid species that carry various animal traits. Velvet, the girl in question, was born with large brown rabbit ears on the top of her head, often an object of ridicule for Cardin to focus on. Jaune had stepped up to defend her, as he had done once before, and this was the reward he got for his heroics._

_The next hit ended with Jaune nearly choking on his own spit. He could barely breathe as it was, but the constant hits to the chest and face made times to breathe few and far in between. He was lucky that he didn’t pass out yet. His left eye was swollen shut, his right closed from the intense pain. His ears rung, but he could still hear people if they were close or loud enough._

_He readied himself for the next hit, a punch that never came. First, Dove, the one holding him from the back let go, and soon enough the two others did as well. Jaune had no idea what was happening, but he was thankful that it was over._

_He forced himself past the pain to at least look and see what was going on. He dropped to his hands and knees, panting and trying to regain some air in his lungs._

_Cardin was on the ground unconscious. Jaune could assume the same of the others, or they had run off to save themselves. Either way, Jaune’s blurry vision only registered Cardin by his armor._

_A figure bent down in front of Jaune. Even in his dazed state he could recognize those long golden tresses anywhere. Lacking the strength to speak, he let out a groan, and the world faded to black._

_Jaune woke with a splitting headache taking over half his head, and the other half cool and cold. \His breath was quick and shallow, his hands searching his face to find an ice pack taped to his head. He sat up as quickly as his body would allow, looking around with his one good eye._

_“Easy, killer. It’s only been a couple hours.” A voice spoke to him, conveniently coming from the side that he couldn’t see. His left eye was covered by the ice pack, and likely bearing the black and blue from the baseless bareknuckle brawl that happened with Cardin earlier. He didn’t need to see her to know who it was._

_Yang Xiao Long always had a cocky and sarcastic air to her, and right now was no different. He turned his head to look over at her, smiling that cocky smile of hers at him as she was seated at one of the small desks in the dorm room._

_“Where’s Velvet?” It was all Jaune could think to say right now. She was cute, yes, and her accent was just the slightest bit adorable, but Jaune was absolutely sure that she wasn’t going to buy anything Jaune was selling. Even if that happened, he’d still have to go through Velvet’s teammates before anything._

_Yang let out a single laugh. It was dry and loaded with sarcasm, but her smile was genuine. “She’s fine, loverboy. I knocked Cardin out, Sky and the others bailed, and after I dropped you off here, I went to see if Velvet was alright.” She paused to let it all sink in._

_Jaune let out a sigh of relief, glad to hear that they didn’t go marching back to harass her._

_Yang let the silence carry on for just a little longer than what would be considered comfortable. Her mind was busy at work processing everything that had gone down, and she knew that she was missing a few pieces of the puzzle._

_“How long has this been going on, Jaune?” She asked without mercy. Jaune could feel her faze cutting through the ice pack and digging into his skull._

_“Well, I actually managed to fight them off for a bit, but they sti-“ He was cut off by Yang, her voice sharp and serious._

_“How many times have they beaten you up like this?”_

_Jaune didn’t have any desire to reply. He had to lie to Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora about where he got his injuries from, but Yang wasn’t going to have any of it. “It’s not like it matters.” He replied quietly. “Pyrrha’s been working enough for the both of us, and I still can’t even take one of them on in a fight.” He couldn’t tell Yang of all people about how he got into Beacon. She was a complete wild card, there was no telling what she would do with that sort of information. He just needed to keep things as quiet as possible until the bruises faded away._

_“Why are you here?” He appreciated the fact that she took him back to his dorm and even patched him up a little, but he couldn’t understand why she decided to stick around. Was it because she really wanted to find out how and why Cardin was doing all of this? “How did you even find us back there?”_

_“I wasn’t out looking for you, if that’s what you were asking.” Her reply was quick and snarky. She refused to show anything less than a calm look or a wild smirk overtake her features, leaving Jaune in the dark about what she had on her mind. “I was just out looking for some good spots around campus. No one ever really gave us the grand tour, so I was just looking around. It was pretty hard not to hear Cardin, and I found you being held while he got more than a few shots in.”_

Yang didn’t reply to Jaune’s question. She too was staring off into space, thinking about that day.

“I’ll tell you what I told you the day after all that.” Her voice was low and careful, but all too soft and worried. “I was just looking for some good spots around campus. I…”

“You wanted to find us sooner so you could beat them up some more.” Jaune wasn’t going to let her weasel out of this. He had gotten select words out of her before, and he wanted her to say it again. “You pitied me when Cardin was wailing on me, and you felt bad that you had to give me the bad news.”

Yang said nothing to this. She didn’t want to tell him that he was right. Sometimes she worried that she was right as well.

“Come on, I’m sure when you saw me on the ship you were thinking, oh, _look at that guy_. I’m sure you’re just doing this so you don’t have to feel bad about me.”

She breathed out a long breath and patted Jaune once more.

She shook her head and looked at him only briefly before looking up at the sky once more. “Look Jaune, Yeah. I feel bad about that. But I’m not pitying you or anything.” She shrugged with a calm smile. “Some people you… You just want to help them. I’ve gotten you out of a tight spot, but I think I still would have helped you with this whole thing regardless.” The smile she gave him was clean and honest.

Jaune felt the guild creeping up. Of course it was pity. She felt bad that he had gotten beaten up.

“You’re Ruby’s friend.” She tried to defend herself once more. The more she spoke, the quieter she became, as if she was loosing belief in her own words. “I couldn’t let them wail on you. She’d hate me if she found out that I could have stopped them but didn’t.”

Jaune didn’t believe her. He knew what she had said to herself in her dazed state, but he wasn’t going to rip it out of her. If that’s what she wanted to keep telling herself, then he wouldn’t push it any further.

Whatever motives there were, Jaune was glad that she stepped in to save him.

“Anyways, Do you want to go scope out the place? I don’t normally, you know, head down that way.”

She smiled at him. She knew Jaune wasn’t the kind to go out and get new clothes for his time off. He was plenty fine walking around in his armor. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to go and find a new outfit that lent itself a little better to his fighting style.

“I would, but I won’t.” She smiled back brightly at him, but to his displeasure. “This is your case, if Coco finds me walking around with you, it’s going to hurt you getting points with her. You’ll have to explain why I’m at your side.”

Though he didn’t like it, she was right. He needed to do this completely on his own. At least his scroll had a GPS system, so it wouldn’t be that bad if he got a little lost. “Yeah.” He sighed. “I guess, you know, I should get going so I can find this place.”

 

"Good luck! Smart thinking getting a look of the place. I know everything's going to go well!"


End file.
